


'Til death, or annulment, do us part

by adelaide_rain



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Arthur and Eames's wedding, Ariadne is hideously jealous and gets drunk. She wakes up with not only hungover but married. To Cobb. Arthur wakes up to a naked Eames kissing him. I think he's got the better deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til death, or annulment, do us part

\---

When Eames had first announced that he and Arthur were getting married Ariadne had thought it was a joke and looked to Arthur to deny it. Instead he had just given a secretive little smile. When he started to wear the surprisingly subtle and stylish engagement ring that Eames gave him, she had decided that he was only going through with it because he would get to wear an especially nice suit. But when the deeply romantic, personalised vows had been spoken and the registrar had announced 'you may kiss the groom', Ariadne had felt the last of her hope wither and die at the way that Arthur had instigated the passionate kiss.

She sighed, lying there in the hotel bed the morning after the wedding with her head pounding and nausea swimming faintly in her stomach. She reached for her totem; it was her morning ritual to feel its nuances before opening her eyes. But today as she reached over to the bedside table she felt the warmth of another person. Her eyes flew open as she thought, _ohgodohgodhowmuchdididrinkwhowhowho?_

Lying beside her, shirt open to his naval and trousers creased from sleep, was Cobb. When she looked down at herself she was relieved to see that she was still fully clothed in her crumpled copper dress.

Reaching across him for her purse, she took out her totem and reassured herself that this was real. The knowledge wasn't entirely comforting. They might not have had sex but they had slept in the same bed and that was embarrassing enough. There had definitely been a lot of alcohol involved in the night before. After seeing Eames and Arthur's first slow dance as husbands, seen the smiles that they gave each other, jealousy had risen in her stomach , acidic and bitter, and she had turned to stronger stuff than the table wine. Never good with strong alcohol, the night quickly turned into snatches of conversation and increasingly fuzzy images of doing embarrassing things. Very few of them involved Cobb and she wondered how this had happened.

\---

Arthur was woken with a kiss, a soft touch of lips pressed against his. It was a spectacularly nice way to wake.

"Good morning, husband mine," Eames said quietly and his voice snaked its way around Arthur's body and made him shudder.

"Good morning." He returned the kiss more hungrily. Kisses melted into more and their first morning of marriage was one of wonderful, lazy lovemaking and breakfast from room service, feeding each other strawberries and drinking champagne.

It was midday and he was in the shower before Arthur's thoughts encompassed anything other than Eames. They had retired early to enjoy their first night as a married couple but before they had, Arthur noticed how much Ariadne was drinking. She had a terrible crush on Arthur and it was his fault. He had kissed her in that dream but he had honestly thought that there was a chance that it would distract the projections. He had done the same with Eames, a long time ago, and it had worked. Ariadne had taken the kiss completely the wrong way and her drinking the night before had been his fault. As he stepped out of the shower, he decided to go and visit her to make sure she was alright.

Back in the bedroom, he announced his plans to Eames after a moment of speechlessness at seeing his husband sprawled naked on the bed, hair still wet from the shower and flicking through a magazine.

"Good idea,” Eames replied. “We should go see everyone before we head off anyway." He put the magazine down and stretched to his bag. He pulled out their tickets and examined them. "We need to be at the airport-"

"By 17.30, for our flight at 19:14; we should arrive in Honolulu at 21.45."

Eames grinned at him. "You're such a little automaton, aren't you?"

Arthur threw his towel at him. "Shut up and get dressed."

\---

Ariadne had been staring at Cobb and wondering what to do for about half an hour when there was a knock at the door. A peek through the spyglass showed Eames poking Arthur in the stomach and getting batted away. Not knowing what else to do, she opened the door a crack and stood so that they wouldn't be able to see into the room.

 _Oh Arthur,_ she thought as she saw him: perfectly pressed trousers, shirt and tie and cufflinks despite going on a five hour flight to Hawai'i for his honeymoon in a few hours. She spared Eames a quick glance, noting the peek of tattoos beneath his short sleeves.

"Good afternoon, Ariadne," Arthur said, bowing his head ever-so-politely.

"Hello, poppet," Eames said with a little wave and Ariadne felt her lips quirk. She couldn't stand him (because after all he was her rival) but that voice, that accent, dripped with sex appeal.

"Hello."

"We just wanted to check you were alright. You were drinking quite a lot last night-"

"Is that a wedding ring?" Eames interrupted Arthur and Ariadne wondered what he was talking about - until her eyes drifted down to her left hand and saw the incredibly cheap-looking gold-coloured band there. Before she could even start to understand what it was doing on her finger, things got worse:

"Ariadne, what are you doing in my room?"

Cobb had woken.

\---

In the taxi over to the airport, Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to stop the headache from blossoming. Eames reached over and squeezed his free hand; it helped a bit. Their honeymoon was supposed to be relaxing, a well-earned break, but this first day of it had been frankly bizarre.

Going to see Ariadne had been the start; realising that she and Cobb, both drunk and heartsick, had somehow staggered out and found a Vegas-style marriage hall in San Francisco. They had said their vows before wobbling back to Ariadne's room and passing out.

Eames had been the one to organise the annulment while Arthur calmed Cobb down. Ariadne had balked when Eames had checked with her whether they had, ahem, consummated the marriage, and she had hit him hard enough to cause a large purple bruise on his bicep. Arthur had been surprised at how easy it had been to annul the marriage - the same place that performed the ceremony had a good stack of the relevant paperwork for such purposes - though Arthur wasn't sure that Ariadne and Cobb would ever look at each other in the same way again.

"Stop worrying about it," Eames said, scooting over to kiss him.

"Put your seatbelt back on," Arthur said automatically.

"You say the most romantic things." Eames chuckled, a deep throaty laugh that made Arthur shudder, made him very glad that they would have the next two weeks alone. But he did as he asked, moving back over to his own side of the seat. "But at least you want to stay married to me."

"Well," Arthur said, giving the kind of smile he only ever let Eames see. "It would be more difficult for us to get an annulment. We consummated our marriage. Four times so far."

Another of those chuckles and Arthur wanted to consummate it again and again.


End file.
